Asterix – 93 points

The Gaul.  An old favourite and rightly so.  This place does by far and away the best pepper sauce to ever grace a hunk of dead flesh. The guy ruling the stove is an old surly bloke, who always appears to be in a cow of a mood and regularly abuses his staff in the foulest French a non-native has ever spoken.  There is a tendency of a lot of French restaurants to adopt the typical Gaul service style, i.e. rude, unhelpful and generally not the sort of people you want to sit down and have a pint with.  This is annoying in France, but even worse here as you always get the feeling that if the waiter was in any other restaurant, he would be formal and polite as expected.  At the Gaul however, the guy behind the counter really does appear to be a grumpy old git; he can probably get away with it because the food is so good.

 

The food:  Fantastic.  The steak is great, it is better than great, it is a force surhumaine that goes well beyond la potin magique.  The menu consists of two options, an A course for 1,500 yen and a B course for 2,000 yen.  Both courses have 3 or so options as a starter, 3 options as a main and a desert plate that contains more calories than a grown man needs for a week.  I have visited a number of times, and almost always have the steak, but the lamb there is also very good.  37 points.

 

The price:  For what you get, a bargain. 8 points.

 

The volume:  Only 1 point lost for its ability to induce sleep about half an hour after eating. 14 points.

 

The extras:  A coffee and Tokyo’s best lunch desert place.  14 points.

 

Bonus.  Full bonus points because I always leave this place happy.  This is a place to look forward to, a Friday lunch to celebrate the end of the week, the sort of lunch that if you had more than once a week (or year perhaps) you would keel over with a heart attack.  20 points.

 

The details: 6-3-16 Akasaka, Minato-ku

Phone 03 5561 0980

 

Hostellerie Suzuki – 56 points

In memory of what happened on a date that shares the same date (at least in terms of day and month) many years ago, the lads decided it would be appropriate to raise a couple of glasses to fallen heroes near one of Tokyo’s well known (notorious) centres of remembrance, Yasukuni Jinja.  Unfortunately, whilst the location chosen to remember the history that brought us where we are today was the lovely and high recommendable Kudan Kaikan, due to the existence of a very reasonable nomi hodai (i.e. all you can drink) plan on the menu, none of us are in any position (or until at least a couple of days after, any condition) to give any comment on how the place was.  Photos of the evening suggest however that the local wildlife was rather pretty.

 

Which leads me on to lunch, which at least, if not more memorable, I can remember more about.  Hostellerie Suzuki is a very nice French restaurant, just up the road and almost opposite what is currently my top French restaurant for lunch in Tokyo (more about that soon).  I had visited this place before and had a very tasty bit of lamb with Big Trouble, so it was with hope that we ventured out into the oven for a bit of Frog.

 

The food:  Not quite as good as the first time round, but still not bad.  RB had I both went for the homemade bacon, on a salad bed.  The bacon was good, but a little overcooked.  As a result of my recent interest in charcuterie, much credit goes to a restaurant that will make the effort of curing its own bacon, although to really show off a home made bacon, it needs to be cooked to the stage where there is a little crispiness around the edges, but the meat is still soft so that when you bite into it the flavours of the cure come through.  The place can do better, I know as the lamb I had there a month or so ago was fantastic, which is saying something a city that doesn’t generally do lamb well.  25 points.

 

The price:  About 1,500 yen for a lunch that comes with a salad or soup, main, bread and a choice of three deserts from the desert buffet. 6 points.

 

The volume:  Not quite there, although extra bread was provided (on request). 7 points.

 

The extras:  Coffee and a desert buffet, with good deserts.  Almost perfect, the only lost points were due to the coffee being a bit small and the desert buffet being limited to a choice of three cakes.  13 points.

 

Bonus: Sorry, but not having the air conditioner working properly at this time of year almost gets you no bonus points, the only redeeming point was that some workman was in there trying to fix it.  Still French is generally not the type of cuisine that goes well with buckets of sweat, unless there is a well-chilled bottle of something pink to go with it, hopefully next to a beach. Still though, we will visit again, hopefully when the heat has dissipated a bit, the bonus score should be a bit higher as this place deserves more than 56 points.  5 points.

 

The details: B1F Maeda Building 5-4-17 Akasaka, Minato-ku

Phone 03 3585 6080

Web site: http://www.hos-suzuki.com